Happy Anniversary!

Today is Chandler and my 7th anniversary! To spare everyone the mushy stuff, I'll just say that I'm very lucky to be married to a great guy who is also my best friend. Love ya babe, can't wait for Sushi tonight! Now I'd better go call Chan and tell him to read our blog.....

Happy Birthday to the Coolest Aunt EVER!

Today, my Aunt Wendy Annette Wahlen has a birthday and turns 25 (close enough)! All the Wahlen cousins will agree that their is no cooler lady around than Wendy. She is so awesome that we even named little Quincy Annette after her in hopes she will be half as neat. Wendy is a great teacher in Long Beach and is working hard to get certified to become a principal. The kids she teaches don't have much going for them in life, but they do have the best teacher who cares about them and teaches them life lessons they might not learn elsewhere. She loves politics (yes, we are related) and got to go help out with Mitt Romney's campaign this year and even got to ride on his plane! She is a great example of ALWAYS standing up for what you beleive in, no matter what. She has a great testimony and loves her nieces and nephews so much and would do anything for us. I have wonderful memories of when I was little and Wendy would go to great lengths to make sure we were always having a fun time. I know I can always count on her and treasure all the time I get to spend with her. I love you Wend, hope you have a great day and a great Christmas! You deserve it!

Rooftop Christmas Party

On Saturday we had our annual Christmas party with all our employees and their spouses. We are really blessed to have great people to work with. They keep our business running smoothly and are great to be around. Dori is our office manager and one day my Dad asked McKinley what her dad does for work and she said "Oh, he works for Dori." We really are grateful to all of them and it was fun to get together and show our appreciation! Thanks Guys!

From L to R: Emily, Dori, Connie (my Mom), Abby, Destry, Chandler, Me, and Jane. PS. Thanks to Abby for the picture.

The Holy "wawa"

Halle calls her sippy cup her "wa-wa" and the term has been taken up by all in our household. If the "wa-wa" cannot be found it is a bad time in the Daw household. This morning during family prayer Halle was crying for the "wawa." McKin was saying the prayer and said "Please bless that Halle can find her wawa, so that we can have the Spirit of God." AMEN!

Is there sugar in honey? Then YES!

So we've been watching ELF quite a bit lately at our house. Tonight Chan brought home some honey from a gift basket one of our vendors gave us and we had spaghetti for dinner and McKin said she wanted honey on her spaghetti like ELF (he had syrup, but it's all sugar). We let her try it on a little piece because we thought she would think it was disgusting and stop but she loved it and had honey on all her spaghetti. YUCK!

Family Pics

A lot of people have asked who did our Family Photos, so rather than respond to each one, I thought I would just post it. We got them done with Bobbi Thomson of Journey Photo in Pocatello. She charged $250 for our family and then just gives you a CD and prints and you can order whatever you want. I think they turned out pretty good, although I'm slightly biased.

Breakfast with Santa

Bright and early Saturday morning (who eat's breakfast at 8:00 AM on a Saturday? CRAZY!) some of my friends and I took our older kids to eat breakfast with Santa & Mrs. Clause. It was this cute little thing they were doing at the Christmas Tree Fantasy in Blackfoot. It was way cute! They got coloring stuff, little gift bags, huge breakfasts, and got to hang out with Santa, Mrs. Clause, and a REALLY random artic wolf named Elizabeth. They kept telling the kids that she helps in the North Pole. I've never really seen wolves associated with Christmas, but I'm open to new ideas. After breakfast they got to go listen to a book read by Mrs. Clause and then talk to Santa and draw him pictures. As you can see, McKin had a great time!

I just love this one, because look how excited Saddie is! She had the cutest Christmas dress on, told Misti that she could be married to Santa, and then Mrs. Clause told her the same thing!

Saddie, Marin, Jase, & McKin. Thanks to my great friends for coming, and thank you to Misti for the pictures. Thank goodness that there are good friends around to help a girl out who can't remember her camera!

McKin's Quote of the Day

"I'm going to tell Santa to put Darth Vader on the naughty list." She's been watching Star Wars with her Dad, heaven help us.

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Birthday G-Dub

So first things first, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone from the Daw Family..

Now on to even more important news, today is also the day that my little brother Garrett turns 18 and makes that ceremonius first trip to the Aberdeen Maverick for cigarettes and lottery tickets....just kidding. Garrett is such a stud, he's a man of few words but when he speaks up he's the funniest guy you have ever met. One of my all time favorite quotes from when he was pretty young - "If a man never spent a dime, he'd be rich but he'd be naked."

He's a great uncle and example to our girls and isn't afraid to do what's right. He loves sports and is fun to watch, someday he's going to be a great coach or sports analyst! Have a great day Buckwheat, even though it's Thanksgiving we hope you get a little of the spotlight. Our wish is that you will get to sit in a clean house, watch ESPN, and that it rains (little inside joke). Love ya!

Crazy 8 Tag

So, my blog is filled with tags lately and my sister Jill tagged me so here it goes:

8 Favorite TV Shows:

1. The Office
2. American Idol
3. Biggest Loser
4. Jon & Kate plus 8
5. Supernanny
6. Hannity & Colmes, O'Reilly Factor (I'll group them since they are pretty similar)
7. Dateline
8. Home Shows (House Hunters, Property Virgins, etc.)

Also, my guilty pleasure is Desperate Housewives. I can't beleive I just admitted that on the internet, but it's really pretty good and funny!

8 Favorite Restaurants:

1. Wasabi (yummm....sushi)
2. Benihana
3. Johny Carino's
4. Olive Garden
5. Rodizio Grill
6. Outback
7. The Sea Grill or Tavern on the Greene in NYC (I'll probably never go there again, but they were awesome!)
8. Maddox

8 things that happened today (the tag is supposed to say yesterday, but I can't remember that far):

1. Got our water heater hopefully fixed! Yay! No more carbon monoxide poisoning for this family, no sir. It's a long story but we are all alive.
2. The new fireplace for our basement was delivered.
3. Exercised, every little bit helps I guess.
4. Watched Christmas movies with the girls and helped them make Christmas lists. It's a little premature but there's nothing wrong with lengthening the Christmas season as long as possible.
5. I folded laundry and made stir fry for dinner, really exciting I know.
6. Annie the Nanny came over, yay!
7. Had a wonderful but rushed FHE lesson on the First Vision given by Chan and wonderful treats made by me with some help from the girls and then had to stand firm and not let McKinley have any because she didn't eat her dinner. I hate that.
8. Fought with McKinley about taking her Flinstone vitamin.

8 things I look forward to:

1. Hawaii with my family in March!
2. Sundays, or weekends in general, but mostly Sundays.
3. Not having 2 kids in diapers.
4. Summer, I know it's a little early but still......
5. Christmas, Christmas shopping, I pretty much love the whole season.
6. Taking some fun family trips when the girls are a little older.
7. Uninterrupted Sleep
8. Chan getting home from work everyday

8 Things I love about fall:

1. Football, mostly BYU Football
2. School starting, it's always exciting
3. Harvest
4. Apple Cider
5. Knowing that Christmas is getting closer
6. Primary Programs
7. Time change, gotta love the extra hour. There's nothing better than thinking you are going to be late for church and then realizing you have an extra hour and that you are doing awesome! However, I'm usually still late.
8. Halloween and seeing your kids in their costumes.

8 things on my wishlist:

1. A full year's supply of food storage
2. To be skinnier, that will probably be there forever.
3. Millions of dollars
4. I agree with Misti, season pass to a spa
5. For BYU to kill Utah in every single athletic competition the two ever meet in.
6. A Son
7. A kindle, that is the coolest invention ever.
8. Not to get too mushy, but mostly that my kids will grow up healthy, happy, and with strong testimonies.

Halloween Bugs!

So for Halloween this year, my 3 girls all went as insects. I usually try to dress up them in a theme, but we'll see how long that lasts. I have a feeling that when Halle starts to have an opinion about what she is, that will go down the drain. This year McKinley was a butterfly, Halle was a ladybug, and Quincy was a caterpillar.

We went to the ward trunk or treat, McKin and Ellie made camp by the Manwarings van to start in on their stash.

After Halle had gotten her candy she helped Dad and Quincy hand out candy.

Quincy and her future best friend, Macey Montano. They are only 2 weeks apart.

We had a great Halloween, after the Trunk or Treat we visited Chan's parents and then went with the Manwarings around our neighborhood and it was surprisingly nice weather. It was really nice not to have to figure out how to keep your kids warm and still have their costumes show. Hope everyone had a great Halloween!

Happy Birthday Mom and Nana!

Today my beautiful mom turns 52 (sorry Mom if that was a secret)! Doesn't she look great? She is a great mom and grandma, always willing to help me with my kids and be a best friend to me as well. I love talking to and spending time with her. She is so unselfish and giving of everything she has. She also works for our business and does a wonderful job! She is always telling Chan and me that if we want to hire someone else for her job then we can, and we look at her like she is crazy because we could never find anyone as good. We are grateful for all that she does for us and wish her a wonderful birthday! Love you Mom!

Tag from Jennie

My friend Jennie Cannon tagged me a while ago, and I had the whole post ready to put up when my internet stopped working and I had to re-start my computer and lost the whole thing. Sooo, I was quite frustrated but now I'm ready to give it another shot.

Here's 6 weird/random things about me (it was hard to narrow it to 6):

1. My most FAVORITE food is Sushi, but the food I hate the most is chinese food. I know it doesn't make sense but I'm talking about the nasty cheap chinese food that you have to scrape the shortening off the top of your mouth when you are done and that buy MSG by the barrel. Sadly, this is one of Chan's favorite foods so I do tolerate it once in a while to prove what a good wife I am =)

2. I love politics and watch a probably unhealthy amount of Fox News. Maybe someday I'll be the next Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck.....

3. I can't seem to write anything without using the ellipsis (....) It's my favorite punctuation! I like to use it for dramatic pauses, or for trailing thoughts, and I use it probably way too much. See above.

4. One of the things I can't stand the most is knowing that someone else is having fun, and I'm not. I LOVE parties, and my family will attest that I will go do GREAT lengths to not miss anything fun.

5. I LOVE to read, but don't do it as much as I should because I know what happens when I start to read (because putting down the book for anything less than a natural disaster isn't an option): my kids eat junk whenever and wherever they want, my husband complains that I don't talk to him, my house turns into a disaster, and I don't shower or sleep.

6. One of my worst habits is interrupting. I used to be horrible at it, but I like to think I have gotten a little better. I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize right now to everyone I have ever interrupted.

So there ya go, 6 of the probably thousands of weird things about me. I'm not going to pass this on because I'm way too tired to leave all the comments, etc., etc, but if anyone wants to do this, then feel free!

Happy Birthday Whitney!

Today, my gorgeous youngest sister and sibling turns 14 years old! When I was her age, she wasn't even 1 yet! I'm scared to think what our family would be like without Whitney, she is the perfect youngest child! She is an amazing aunt to my girls and a great help. She is also a great friend to me, a talented dancer, smart, very popular with all her friends, and thankfully VERY innocent. When she was younger her excuse for everything was "Hello, I'm a pre-teen," but lately she's been turning into quite the teenager and it's fun to see her grow. Whitney lights up the room and brings fun everywhere she goes. We hope you have a great birthday Whit, love you!

Pumpkin Carving

For FHE last night, we carved pumpkins. We went out to Shoemaker's and picked out pumpkins from their large pumpkin patch (thanks for the idea Amber!) and then went home and carved pumpkins.

Quincy's Pumpkin

Halle's Pumpkin

McKinley's Pumpkin

It's been a while...

So it's been a little bit since I blogged so here's what we've been up to. We went to Aberdeen for Conference. Halle enjoyed a relaxing massage from her dad, while stuffing her face with crackers, what a life eh!It was followed up by a ride on my Dad's office chair given by Garrettand then some running around and more crackers.Halle REALLY didn't want to leave.Moving on, Halle had her first day of nursery, and Chan and I had the best day of church we've had in 18 months. She just marched right in and didn't shed one tear, just grateful to discover a huge room full of toys at church.

Quincy after church, I hope she'll stay like this for the next 16 months, but I don't think I'm that lucky. McKinley HATES to get her hair washed, she can't imagine anything worse that some inadvertent water getting in your eyes or ears, so she had a GREAT idea to get these goggles (usually used in potato harvest to keep dust out of your eyes) out of the dress up box so that she wouldn't get water in her face.Then she made this dinosaur mask at Preschool and decided to document it herself. She thought she was pretty scary stuff.
Finally, does this look familiar? Carrying one baby, pushing another, purse on the ground....wonder who this girl's been watching.

Oh, one more thing.. .last night McKinley announced out of the blue that she would be voting for Barack Obama. We're a divided household.

The Chipmunk Adventure

This weekend all the boys in my fam went to the BYU Game, so Whitney and my mom came down to hang out with my girls and me and my mom had a miraculous idea...we should rent The Chipmunk Adventure! This is the movie that as a kid we watched over and over and over. I had the lines, dances, songs, etc. all memorized. My family even still uses lines from this movie in everyday jargon. Whitney sadly missed the Chipmunk Adventure era and was glad to know where some of our weird sayings come from. Ah, if I only had a dime for every time I fought with my sisters over who got to be Brittany. Most of the time I won, I was the oldest.....and the coolest, just kidding!

Now McKinley is totally into it, she's watched it like 5 times since yesterday (it just snowed, ok!) , is delighting in replaying conversations from the movie with me ("Now you be Miss Miller mom"), and is walking around singing "we are the girls of rock and roll."

Some of you may have NO idea what I'm talking about, but for the Baker clan all I have to say is "I can still see the eyes, I can still see the eyes."

Farewell to Summer

I've never been a fan of the long Idaho winters, but now that I have children who adore playing outside with the neighbors (hence my house staying clean and me being able to accomplish a few things) I dread winter like the plague.

The nice fall part isn't so bad and then it's fun to have a little snow around Christmas, but by January 2nd I'm dying for it to be warm again, and by March I'm ready to scream. This is now what winter means for me and all Idaho moms pretty much:

• Your child's average amount of TV intake per day dramatically increases.
• I do try to encourage non-television related activities, however those usually involve mess making to some degree which is a downside.
• Your children will still want to play outside, so you'll take 1/2 hour to drag out the snow clothes, bundle them up and then they will play outside for 10 minutes and then come back in because they are cold.
• Any step out of the door for whatever reason takes twice as long, all the extra clothes and shoes and socks.

Here is some of the Pheasant Hollow neighborhood gang, as Chan calls them, in our backyard for one of the last summer play sessions of 2008.

Anna (the upside down one, this is usually how we see Anna!), Ogden, McKinley, Halle, Ellie, and Emma

McKin performing her dance for everyone (hmm..... McKinley performing, that's weird) and Halle and Ellie on the swing. Halle loves Ellie, she takes such good care of her.

So goodbye summer, don't be too long.

Quincy's Blessing

Sunday we blessed Quincy in our ward and then had everyone over for lunch. Those functions are always a little stressful, but great. Chandler gave a great blessing and Quincy looked adorable, of course.

On a side note - Halle LOVES her Aunt Hailey!

Garrett's a Senior, & Easton is 1... I CANNOT BELEIVE IT!

My youngest brother Garrett is a senior this year and last Friday night, we went to watch him in his last home football game. His team beat the other team 70-16 and are undefeated and ranked #1 in the state, so you might say they are doing well. It did make for a boring game though. Garrett is such a stud with such a fun personality, we love him!

G-Dub with the Folks
Buckwheat with the Daw FamHalle enjoying the game....kind ofWe love Aunt Whit
McKinley won a t-shirt from the cheerleaders and put it on, as you can see it fits her perfectly.Easton aka Easty Beasty, my little sister Jill's boy turned 1 yesterday, so after the game on Friday we had a little birthday party for Easton. I've never seen a kid so excited about cake in my life, he had almost 2 slices and then was licking the plate! It was pretty funny, we love our little beasty. My girls think he is the greatest thing! Hope you had a great birthday Easton!